A passionate sense of purpose informs everything the Grammy-winning Chicago composer Augusta Read Thomas does in music. It is central to her organizing, directing and co-curating the Ear Taxi Festival, by far the largest festival of contemporary classical music in the city's history.

From Oct. 5 to 10, the festival she spearheads will bring together more than 500 local musicians to present 32 events at multiple venues across the city, from concerts of new and newer music, to panel discussions, to meet-the-artist events, to sound installations, to a "blowout party" at the club Constellation.

Think of Ear Taxi as a culmination of "Gusty" Thomas' dedicated years of service to Chicago's growing contemporary music scene. When she began planning Ear Taxi three years ago, the university professor of composition at the University of Chicago thought a mega-festival would be the ideal means of celebrating the breadth, depth, diversity and vitality of that scene, in a way certain to attract national attention.

Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune

Augusta Read Thomas planned the Ear Taxi Festival with the intention of drawing national attention to the contemporary classical music scene.

Augusta Read Thomas planned the Ear Taxi Festival with the intention of drawing national attention to the contemporary classical music scene. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

How could it not? Ear Taxi will comprise some 27 hours of contemporary classical works, from experimental pieces to rock and jazz-inspired pieces to everything in between. Fifty-four of those works will be world premieres, with 87 living composers represented, more than 60 percent of them emerging voices in new music, and 30 percent women.

The bulk of the performances will take place nightly in the Harris Theater for Music and Dance at Millennium Park, with a new music marathon of 13 free concerts Oct. 8-9 at the Chicago Cultural Center. No event will overlap with any other, so listeners who cannot get enough new music can catch them all if they wish.

Groups taking part include Ensemble Dal Niente, the Spektral Quartet, ICE, Third Coast Percussion and Fulcrum Point New Music Project, whose director, Stephen Burns, is the festival's co-curator. Each musician is being paid the same fee ($300) and each performer and group will receive roughly the same amount of rehearsal and performance time, Thomas points out.

What's more, events will be extremely affordable — $20 is the going rate for most tickets, $10 for student tickets — while more than half of them will be free and open to the public.

Explaining how she came up with the festival's name, Thomas says she imagined the heads of many composers, with aural taxi rides coming out of them.

"The very idea of contemporary classical music makes some people afraid," the 52-year-old composer concedes. "For that reason, I wanted to make our festival kaleidoscopic, fast-moving and fun. The dress code is casual and you're allowed to bring drinks in from the bar."

Thomas hasn't collected a cent for assembling Ear Taxi, nor does she expect to. A key point of the Chicago-centric festival, she says, is to give local composers and new music performers the kind of big, central forum they have never shared before — and to take listeners along on the taxi ride.

"I would like people to feel empathy for living composers and for the incredible depth and beauty and nuance of their music," she says.

If there's anyone in town who can remove the fear factor from new classical music, and make folks want to binge out on it for six straight days, it's Gusty Thomas.